As we noted earlier this week, despite the government shutdown, employees with the NWS would still be working to provide weather information “necessary to protect life and property.”

According to Popular Science, about 75 to 80 percent of NWS employees are considered essential and have been kept on during the shutdown. The problem? There is still no money to pay them, and so for now, they are doing it for free.

The National Weather Service has no doubt been busy here in Colorado, with some October snow and freezing temperatures predicted to continue into late Friday night. Hopefully some IOUs are also in the forecast.

But the sun still shines (or doesn’t), the rain still falls and the wind still blows during a government shutdown.

Luckily, the good people at the National Weather Service in Boulder will still be keeping their eyes on the skies and updating their website, providing information “necessary to protect lives and property.”

The info this site provides is necessary to protect life/property.Therefore,it will be updated during the Federal Government shutdown.#cowx

Snowmaking Friday night on the Mambo run at Loveland Ski Area (Photo: John Sellers, Loveland Ski Area)

For the 2013-2014 ski season, the race to open is officially underway.

Snow — both from the sky and machine — has now started to fall in Colorado’s high country. Arapahoe Basin and Loveland ski areas on Friday night cranked up their snow guns and started snowmaking operations.

Traditionally, the two ski areas have a friendly competition to see who can open first. As for snowmaking, it seems Loveland got a five-hour head start.

The panel — open to the public, but with limited space — will explain the specific weather conditions that caused the flooding, its historical context and the impact of a shifting climate.

The Western Water Assessment, a program of the Cooperative Institute for Research and Environmental Sciences at CU, will also release a preliminary assessment of the floods containing information on weather, water and climate.

Falling temperatures in Colorado’s high country have Loveland Ski Area hoping they can dust off the snowmaking equipment and start blowing snow by sometime next week.

Dustin Schaefer with Loveland Ski Area passed along this picture on Thursday of snow dusting the peaks above the ski area. He said overnight temperatures in the low 30s have prompted the ski area to start their “countdown to snowmaking,” which as of Friday morning was ticking down at just over seven days.

Last season, Araphahoe Basin took honors in the race to open first, opening with one run on an 18-inch base on Oct. 17. Loveland kicked off their season a little less than a week later on Oct. 23.

Early this summer, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (yes, that’s NOAA), predicted an “extremely active” hurricane season with an above average number of storms.

NOAA predicted seven to 11 hurricanes would form in the Atlantic this year. AccuWeather predicted eight. NOAA said there was a 70 percent chance of 13-20 named storms.

If the first hurricane of 2013 forms after 8 a.m. Sept. 11th, it will be the latest appearance by a first hurricane in the “satellite era” (i.e. since 1967, when forecasters first got to chance to see what hurricanes looked like from space.) The latest first hurricane recorded was on Oct. 8, 1905, but earlier hurricanes could easily have been missed with the view from space.

There have been two recorded years without hurricanes — 1907 and 1914 — but today’s experts don’t completely trust those records.

UPDATE: Umberto made it! It was declared a hurricane in the early morning hours of Sept. 11, sneaking under the wire as the second-latest first hurricane.

Dennis Feltgen of the National Hurricane Center said in emails to media this week that the lack of hurricanes could be blamed on dry, stable and sinking air over the central and eastern tropical Atlantic, dust from the Sahara and wind shear that caused storms to dissipate. But he warned we are only halfway through hurricane season and we could still get those predicted storms.

Colorado State University, which is also in the hurricane-prediction business, slightly lowered its seasonal forecast on Aug. 2. But it still said 2013 would see above-average activity, with eight hurricanes and three that develop into major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher.

Cold front to bring much cooler weather to Denver next week (NOAA, nws.noaa.gov)

Since August 15 we have only experienced five days with high temperatures under 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and only one of those days was below average for the date. All the others have been above average, and at times well above average.

Yesterday’s record of 97 degrees at Denver International Airport was a whopping 15 degrees above normal for this time of year.

With another scorcher on the way today, and only a few degrees cooler in the forecast for Sunday, you may be asking yourself if this will ever end. If so, you are in luck.

Temperatures for this coming week look to be dramatically cooler, with highs Tuesday forecast to be some 20 degrees cooler than our forecast highs today. The question will be just how good of a shot of cooler air we will get. High temperatures would likely be more or less 80, but a stronger shot could mean highs near 70 mid-week. For now, will go somewhere in the middle.

In addition to the cooler temperatures, expect an increased chance for showers and thunderstorms for the coming week. Our best shot at moisture appears to be Tuesday and Wednesday, but some models, such as the 12z GFS, try to keep a good amount of moisture in the area through the end of the week.

The long term outlook is still up for debate. Some of the extended models show a persistent dome of warmer than average weather over the central United States days 10 to 20, while others keep us closer to normal with an even better shot of cooler air arriving by day 14.

Record-tying temperatures hit 97 degrees on Thursday. So far this month, the average high temperature in Denver has been 91.2 degrees — 7.8 degrees above normal.

Still, forecasters had expected a hot September, and it does rank as the fourth-warmest month of the year. So as we prepare to sweat through more 90-degree weather, take solace in September also being the first month of Denver’s official snow season.

The last time the Broncos faced off against the Ravens it was 13 degrees at kickoff. Thirteen degrees. It was the coldest postseason game in Broncos’ history.

Broncos fans were told not to fret; Peyton had the glove, bleeding orange and blue would warm the body, and there would have plenty of time to thaw out before the Super Bowl in New Orleans, right?

I won’t rub salt in old wounds, because we all know how that game ended.

Dejected fans could only take comfort in the old adage that tomorrow would be a new day, the sun would rise again. And today the sun did in fact rise again, only this time it is expected to warm Denver to nearly 90 degrees at kickoff — a full 77 degrees warmer than the playoff loss.

Preliminary numbers from the Storm Prediction Center suggest that 2013 will be well below average for tornadoes across the United States.

The average tornado count through mid-August since 2005 is 1,230. So far in 2013 there are only 717 preliminary reports, which is just 58% of normal. With the busiest months for severe weather behind us, it would take a very active “second season” this fall to catch up.

Many of the outbreaks making the list occurred in recent memory, including three outbreaks in 2011 – the Joplin, Mo., EF5 tornado, and the massive three day event from April 26-28, 2011, among them. This does not include any of the tornado outbreaks from 2013 as data is still very much preliminary, and final numbers have yet to be released.

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Forecast Colorado is your place for the latest breaking weather news for Denver and Colorado, featuring the latest forecasts, road conditions and closures — with an occasional detour into meterological science, trivia and oddities.